Delicacies made from peeled beans, particularly lentil and cowpea beans, provide a good source of protein and have numerous health benefits. However, peeling beans manually is laborious and discourages many from enjoying the different kind of meals that can be made from peeled beans.
Current peeling methods include soaking the beans and manually peeling by rubbing the soaked beans between palms after which multiple decanting with water will follow to separate the hull from the peeled beans. This method is time consuming and very tasking.
Some also use devices meant for blending to attempt beans peeling with risk of blending the beans in the process. This is usually followed by multiple decanting to separate the hulls from the peeled beans. The wastage of the beans lost to unintended blending and the time and water consumed makes this method undesirable.
Various machines for peeling beans are known. Some comprising rods to stir beans soaked in water thus creating a mixture containing beans and hulls. Reference is made to the following documents:
D1 DE 342441 C (TALLGREN H) 18 Oct. 1921
D2 PCT/IB2011/055390 (KONINKLIJKE PHILIPS ELECTRONICS N.V) 30 Nov. 2011
D3 GB 165345 A (HENRIK TALLGREN) 30 Jun. 1921
D1 and D3 discloses devices for peeling pretreated beans, peas, and other legumes, comprising beater rods, several screening areas, and flushing out peeled beans with pulsating stream of water.
D2 also discloses a device for dehulling beans, however, the device features are not described in details. It describes the use of a device for peeling beans and a second unit which can be a vacuum device fixed to or detachable from the main device or a separate vacuum device which could suck up the hulls. It further discloses that this second unit can be driven by the main driving motor, or alternatively by another driving means separated from the main driving motor.
The methods and devices described in D1, D2, and D3 have not been seen in any domestic application and may not have domestic or home application because of the size of the devices described.
In general, known methods and devices for peeling beans dry or wet are not fit for domestic or home use and, therefore, not readily available to the vast consumers of meals or delicacies made from peeled beans because of the bulky nature of the devices to accomplish the peeling.
There is currently no suitable method or device for peeling beans and separating the hull from the peeled beans in domestic or home applications. There is, therefore, a need to take the drudgery out of beans peeling and separation of the beans from the hulls. It is required to reduce the processing time, reduce beans wastage, minimize the use of water required during peeling of beans, and make the device compact for domestic application.